Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says the national security
establishment has a perfect record of predicting where American wars
will next break out.
“I would look to history to answer that question,” Gates told
journalist Mike Allen Thursday when asked at Politico’s Playbook
Cocktails forum what theater he thinks America’s next war will take
place in. “And here’s the history. In the 40 years since Vietnam, we
have a perfect record in predicting where we will use military force
next: We’ve never once gotten it right. If you think about it from
Grenada to Haiti to Somalia to Panama to Iraq twice to Afghanistan to
Libya twice, the Balkans and so on — in not one of those cases did we
have any hint six months ahead of the start of hostilities that we were
going to have military forces in those places.”
When Allen modified his question to ask what “hot spot” worries him the most, Gates got more specific.
“Well I think clearly Iran is a concern,” he said. “I think if you
asked most senior national security officials, kind of their worst
nightmare — it is a terrorist in this country with a weapon of mass
destruction. But in terms of other countries, I think you obviously have
to look at Iran and getting nuclear weapons and how destabilizing that
would be.”
Gates also said he worries about North Korea
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Friday, January 17, 2014
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